Right to Refuse Medical Treatment

The 1human right to refuse medical treatment means that patients have legal authority to make decisions about their care. It is declared in patient’s autonomy rights over their own body: “You “own” your body and have the power to make all of the decisions about what will be done to it.” When patient is treated or consulted by a doctor, the doctor can examine client’s condition and file and give advise. The patient is rightful to think over doctor’s recommendations, including suggestion of surgery or another intervention, and give positive or negative answer. The right to refuse is a human right. Patient’s refusal from medical treatment doesn’t have to seem reasonable to the doctor or anybody else. It is a personal decision, made basing on various personal factors that can be familiar only to the patient. Most patients may decide to adhere to their doctors’ recommendations, to say “Yes.” But remember: “Yes is meaningless, if you also have no right to say No.” This means that you are not obliged to go to a hospital to get treatment, and that you can leave at any time. It means that nobody has a right to perform an intervention on your body without getting your consent. It means that woman in labor has the right to refuse an offer for cesarean section or any other obstetric intervention. The woman giving birth is the person in the best position to estimate her needs and options in combination with needs of the unborn child whom she gives her womb, labor, and life force. In the complex ethical dynamic where there are several hearts in one body, the heart that beats for all of them is the one to decide. Shared decision-making is preferable principle for doctor-patient communication. Everybody wants to perform childbirth with doctor they can trust. But iа there appears disagreement about what to undertake at a given moment during birth, somebody has authority to make the final decision. In terms of human right to refuse medical treatment, that person is the patient, powered to make autonomy decisions about their body. The one to make decision in childbirth is the birthing woman.